1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a method and system to remotely monitor batteries and electrical power supplies to anticipate potential problems and effect a solution prior to any destructive power failure.
2. The Prior Art
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), Telecommunications and Instrumentation DC Power Systems utilize batteries, typically lead acid batteries of either sealed or flooded design, as a backup power supply. When batteries in this type of equipment fail, this can cause disruption in related operations. Without constant monitoring of the condition of the batteries, customers may expect to experience battery deterioration and eventually a battery failure at some point in time. A system failure can be extremely expensive in lost data, equipment, and emergency service response (down) time.
In every day operations there is an ongoing concern about the condition of batteries which form the back up power supply. Users of Uninterruptible Power Supplies currently face the choice of either replacing batteries at short specified intervals, waiting for a battery failure, which can have catastrophic consequences, or have periodic load tests performed by a field service engineer. Random early replacement of batteries is exactly that, random. It increases the cost of the system over a period of time while creating extra work and expense for the customer, including the hidden expense of environmentally approved battery disposal. Periodic load tests are only snapshots in time. They are expensive and disruptive.
Electrical power from public utility companies has been found to be a source of disruptions in the operations of many companies. With the increase in a public utility's overall load, the lack of new power generating plants coming on-line, and the deregulation of utility companies, these problems of interruptions will most likely continue to increase over the foreseeable future. UPS systems are installed to help compensate for power failures, but these can become an expensive sacrificial device in the circuit or they can introduce new problems into the electrical power distribution.
Many power related problems can also come from within a customer's facility, whether it is in a building owned by them or leased space. Proper and continuous monitoring of the incoming electrical power can identify power as a source of problems that can be disruptive to the company's operation. Since the business environment changes over time, any power survey provided at a single point in time will not necessarily provide adequate information to show that electrical power may be the source of computer problems, for example. Continuous power monitoring is the best way to set a benchmark and compare future power readings to determine if electrical power is the source of problems and if so, what and how to fix it.
Constant and continual monitoring of DC and AC power provides a means of identifying and correcting power and equipment problems when they arise and to take the proper action to correlate them. Predictive maintenance is less expensive, over a long term, than reactive emergency maintenance, especially when the absence of down time is factored in.
A monitoring system consisting of hardware and software alone is not adequate. Someone still has to monitor the data and make the determination if a service response is required. In order for a service response to be focused on a problem, rather than trying to identify a problem after it has occurred, a remote monitoring service providing the hardware, software and personnel to support the customer's site(s) remotely is clearly preferable.